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On the Move: Isla Fisher

Isla Fisher was born to Scottish parents who moved to Australia, where she landed a role in Home and Away as the teen pin-up Shannon Reed. She relocated to France aged 21 and wrote two novels before decamping to Los Angeles with her fiancé Sacha Baron Cohen and has starred in films including Wedding Crashers. She made headlines after suggesting her compatriot Nicole Kidman should start looking her age

You have to hand it to them: trashy teenage Australian soaps have proved a fair dinkum hit when it comes to launching the careers of their young stars. Without Neighbours we wouldn't have Kylie Minogue, Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe or Natalie Imbruglia. And without Ramsay Street's great rival Home and Away we wouldn't have, er, Isla Fisher.

The actress, who played the young tearaway Shannon Reed, featured in some of Summer Bay's steamiest storylines that put Kylie's wholesome trysts with Jason Donovan in the shade. From 1994-1997 she was forced to endure half a dozen tearful relationships, suppressed memories of child abuse and anorexia before finally running away to France with her lesbian lover. And all this before 6 o'clock on a weekday.

In real life Fisher, 31, is now one half of one of the most unlikely relationships in showbiz. For the past five years she has been engaged